10/10/2017 4 ways to curb our addiction to plastic |

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4 ways to curb our addiction to plastic

Jul 20, 2017 / Kate Torgovnick May

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Not all plastic is evil, but our world could probably do with a whole
lot less of it. Check out these great ideas from a googly-eyed trash
catcher to a styrofoam substitute made from mushrooms and
learn some small steps you can take right now.
Before you read this piece, just take a moment and look: How many of the objects around
you or on you contain plastic? Its everywhere and, strangely, we owe its existence to a
contest run by a billiards company. In 1863, US inventor John Wesley Hyatt was inspired by
a $10,000 prize to create a replacement for the rare and expensive ivory harvested from
elephants that made up billiard balls. After years of experimentation, he developed a
malleable yet hard material from the cellulose in cotton. He called this early plastic

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celluloid,and in a pamphlet, he wrote of its world-changing potential: It will no longer

be necessary to ransack the earth in pursuit of substances which are constantly growing
scarcer.

Plastics did indeed change the world. But while they started out as an environmentally
friendly alternative, theyve led to a cascade of problems for us and for the earth. Todays
plastics are fully synthetic, created by refining oil. Thanks to their complex chemical
structure, they dont decompose, and theyre challenging to recycle a shocking new
report revealed that only 9 percent of the plastic created since 1950 has been recycled. With
more than 300 million tons of plastic produced worldwide a year, plastics are choking our
landfills, collecting in massive floating gyres in our oceans and leaching chemicals into our
food.

Many people around the world scientists and engineers, entrepreneurs and
conservationists are thinking about how to solve the plastic problem from different
angles. Below are a handful of thoughtful ideas to consume, discard and manufacture
plastics more responsibly.

1. Help stop plastic from reaching the oceans

Plastics float. So when tossed haphazardly, plastic litter can be washed into sewers and
waterways, where its carried out to sea. The UNs dire prediction: by 2050 there will be
more plastic in the ocean than fish. Its poisoning the planets circulatory system, says
marine biologist, ocean conservationist and 2009 TED Prize winner Sylvia Earle (TED Talk:
My wish, protect our oceans).

Cleaning up the floating garbage patches in the worlds oceans is a Sisyphean task, so Earle
and her team at the nonprofit ocean protection organization Mission Blue are focused on
trying to stop plastics before they get there. Thats why they love Mr. Trash Wheel (its
official name is The Waterwheel Powered Trash Interceptor), a friendly-looking, googly-
eyed, solar- and water-powered device that glides through Baltimore Harbor snarfing up
floating litter. Created by engineer John Kellett, it contains rotating forks that push plastics
and other floating refuse up a conveyor belt and into a dumpster. Since 2014, Mr. Trash
Wheel has collected half a million Styrofoam containers, 300,000 plastic bags and 400,000
plastic bottles. In December 2016, another interceptor called Professor Trash Wheel
was added to the Baltimore Harbor, and versions are in the works for Honolulu, Milwaukee,
Atlanta, Rio de Janeiro and Panama City.

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Mission Blue also highlights the Seabin Project, which makes and sells floating trash
interceptors for ports, marinas and calm bodies of water. An internal pump in the container
sucks in plastics without trapping marine life. In pilot tests in European ports, each Seabin
was found to collect a half ton of garbage a year. But cleanup efforts dont require fancy
technology. The Mission Blue team are also big fans of the River Warriors of Manila, the
Philippines, a group of people who patrol tributaries of the Pasig River, which was terribly
polluted. They clean up trash and encourage other residents to care for the waterway. Once
volunteers, the River Warriors are now trained and paid workers, creating employment for
the community, too.

2. Give up small disposable plastic products

Its not just River Warriors and googly-eyed monsters who can stop plastics from hitting the
high seas we can all do our part. Too many plastic water bottles are still being discarded
Americans alone throw away 2.5 million an hour so use a reusable bottle. Avoid
disposable plastic grocery bags, which can choke marine life, by bringing your own tote.
Mission Blue suggests some smaller changes, too. Take inspiration from Charleston, South
Carolina, which launched the Strawless Summer Challenge. (Plastic straws can look like
food to fish and turtles and get stuck in their digestive systems.) Meanwhile, the
#Topless4Oceans campaign is all about skipping plastic lids on coffee cups and fountain
sodas.

Or you can think even smaller. More than 800 trillion plastic microbeads from face washes,
body scrubs, toothpastes, detergents and other household products are washed down
drains every day in the US alone. The beads are so tiny that they pass through filters at
water treatment plants and wash out to sea, where marine animals eat them (and yes, if you
eat seafood, youll eventually be eating those same microbeads). A 2015 US law banned
plastic microbeads in rinse-off cosmetics, but many other products still contain them.
Beat the Microbead, part of the International Campaign Against Microplastic Ingredients in
Cosmetics, keeps a list of scrubs, cleansers and toothpastes that are free of plastic
microbeads. More than 20 countries are covered.

Also close to home, studies show that plastic microfibers from clothes made of polyester
and nylon are being released into the oceans in surprising amounts. In fact, a study in
Nature discovered plastic microfibers in 25 percent of fish for sale, raising a serious health
concern for humans. Besides opting for natural fibers, you can wash synthetic clothing as
infrequently as possible, and when you do wash your polyesters, put them in full loads with
cold water to minimize the friction that releases fibers. You can also try using a Guppy

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Friend Washing Bag, which captures microfibers and keeps them from leaving your
washing machine.

3. Support efforts to make it easier to recycle plastic

Recycling plastics can be complicated for a bunch of reasons. First, different plastics are
made out of different basic resins if youve noticed, theyre often marked with numbers
from 1 through 7 inside a triangle, to show what theyre made of. Cities and towns pay
recycling companies to process each variety separately, and since plastic recycling is
expensive anyway, many communities recycle only a few classes (usually just 1 and 2). On
top of this, plastics need to be well-rinsed to be recycled; yes, that yogurt container needs to
be squeaky clean or it goes to a landfill. On top of that, according to the EPA, 27 percent of
municipalities in the US dont offer curbside recycling, which makes it even less likely well
make the effort to wash and separate plastics and haul them to a recycling station. Thanks
to all these factors, only 7 percent of plastic in America is recycled. The rest is buried in
landfills or shipped to other countries to be incinerated a process that takes a harmful
physical toll on the people doing the work.

Adding difficulty to recycling: those numbers in triangles on products disguise the fact that
there are actually thousands of types of plastic and a single product may contain many
different kinds. While metals can be easily separated for recycling by their magnetic
properties, plastics are not easily differentiated. Engineer Mike Biddle has spent 20 years
developing a solution for this (TED Talk: We can recycle plastic). His California-based
company, MBA Polymers, uses a 30-step process that starts with mountains of mixed
plastics, grinds them down to tiny fragments and sorts them by type, grade and color to
create single-origin plastic pellets that can be used to make new products. Back when
Biddle gave his TED Talk, his product was still in development; now companies like
Nespresso and Electrolux are using it instead of so-called virgin plastic for some of their
goods. In another promising sorting idea, last year the UK plastic recycling company
Nextek created PRISM plastics, which glow in fluorescent pinks, blues, reds and yellows
depending on their type when viewed under infrared light, to ease sorting. In 2016, Nextek
won a grant from the British government to develop these plastics for widespread use.

Polymer chemist Jeannette Garcia sees tremendous potential in creating plastics designed
for easy recycling (TED@IBM talk: A super-strong plastic that reverts to dust). In her lab at
IBM, she took discarded water bottles and broke them down into a powder. Using a
reactant, she transformed the powder into a thermoset, an industrial plastic that is stronger
than bone and can be used in automobiles, airplanes and electronics. While thermosets

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cant typically be recycled, Garcias version can be dissolved by sulphuric acid. The acid
can then be neutralized and filtered, leaving behind the original powder. Imagine the
benefits of complete reversion of materials, says Garcia. You could recycle it an infinite
number of times. IBM is looking to license this technology or partner with a company to
produce it.

4. Go back to nature for better packaging

Another group of innovators is returning to plastics that, like Hyatts 1869 celluloid, are
derived from plants. Right now, when you buy any large appliance or piece of furniture, it
often arrives with a mountain of Styrofoam packing material. The EPA estimates that
Styrofoam takes up one-quarter of landfill space in America. Industrial designer Eben Bayer
has a potential solution: protective packaging made from mushrooms, an idea he unveiled
in 2010 on the TED stage (TED Talk: Are mushrooms the new plastic?). Mushrooms, says
Bayer, are natures recycling system, transforming dropped leaves into topsoil. His
MycoFoam takes agricultural waste usually the husks of grain and sets it in molds with
mycelium, the vegetative part of mushrooms and other fungi. The mycelium works like a
glue and molds the waste into a biodegradable polymer that can absorb impact and
insulate. Seven years after Eben talked about MycoFoam on the TED stage, it can now be
found in packaging from Dell and Merck, and the product line has expanded to include wall
insulation and marine buoys.

Theres lots of other food-inspired packaging in the works. A team of Japanese designers
has made a packaging material from a gelatinous substance found in marine algae it
could be deployed to cushion goods, even fragile ones like glass. And scientists at the USDA
have created a biodegradable film made from the milk protein casein that could be used for
food packaging. Its said to be 500 times better than plastic at keeping out oxygen and thus
preventing spoilage. Bonus: the film can also be eaten rather than discarded. Imagine, the
wrapper might someday be another part of your string cheese snack.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Torgovnick May is a writer at TED.com. She can also solve a Rubik's Cube in less than two minutes.
Read more about her work at KateTorgovnickMay.com.

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